As a follow-up to my Silvergirl Research Day entry below, I ask you, the dy reading public: what albums were you raised on? For me it was Bridge Over Troubled Water by S&G and — lord help me — Anne Murray’s Greatest Hits. (The latter was a 45. Ha! (except the laugh is probably on me since I bet a fourth of my readers don’t even know what a “45” is (or maybe this site doesn’t skew nearly as young as I like to imagine (and maybe I have no fucking clue how to use parentheses correctly.).).).).

If there is a record you remember fondly — or if you have kids and have found a CD that both you and the twerps enjoy — lemmie know in the comments.

This past week I’ve been going back and forth on whether I should get the super-cool collector’s edition of Freaks & Geeks with the 80-page yearbook and the two extra discs of special features. I mean, it’s $120, and I don’t really have that sort of cash lying around.

But then I realized that my credit card won’t be charged until April, when it ships. Score.

I was raised on Simon and Garfunkel, James Taylor, and the Beatles’ Rubber Soul. Every single day, my brother and I watched Empire Strikes Back, Ghostbusters, and The Sound of Music on our Betamax. I can replicate every sound that every droid makes in ESB. My college boyfriend used to make me do this on command a lot. However, he got me into F&G, so it evened out.

One of my dad’s favourite albums when i was young was Franky goes to Hollywood: Welcome to the Pleasuredome. I am now 17, and unashamedly still a fan of this album. Others include The Big Chill, and an assortment of U2.

My parents were older than most of my peers’ (Mom was 36 when I was born), so the musical selection was pretty lame to me at the time (big band, jazz, “classic country”).

However, my dad had BOTW on an (orange) 8-track that played pretty much non-stop from the time I was 7 or so. I still remember and expect to hear the ‘chin-chunk’ of the tracks changing when I listen to that album on CD now.

‘Everywhere I go
I get slandered, libeled
I hear words I never heard in the Bible . . . ‘

Surely you had Peter, Paul and Mary? Puff the Magic Dragon? S&G was one of my favorites too. Helen Reddy was another…my Mom was a real woman of the 70’s. But the real kicker is – although these were all 33’s my Dad had a turmtable that played 78’s. And a Teac reel-to-reel. Our 1978 van was the first on the block with an 8-track..and our first 8-track?? Seals & Crofts.

When my father made his first big score as a roofing contractor, he bought near-cherry restored ’58 Olds (aquamarine color scheme) and the biggest stereo cabinet that they at the Philco-Ford store. With the stereo, he got them to throw a bunch of vinyl in for free, so as soon as I got big enough to drag a chair over to the cabinet and plop a stack into the changer, I listened to Rodgers & Hammerstein, Johnny Cash, and Patsy Cline.

I think that the steady diet of musicals and country music played a formative role in my language development. In both genres, the emphasis is telling a story, economically, with a couple of good hooks and nice repetitions (which kids love).

Ballads in general are good for the developing mind in my opinion, so even if you stay with Simon and Garfunkel, Bob Dylan (through “Blood on the Tracks”), Joan Baez (her “Lovesong” album was favorite of my babysitting charges), and the other folkies, you can’t go wrong.

I still play 45s, surprising considering I am 17. We have a jute box that plays them. My parents are older, 50s, and they always played Oldies 100.3 FM (we live near DC). The jingle is permenantely in my head. Mowtown, Beatles, Doors, you name it from the 50’s to the 70’s. Crazy thing is I go for the big band/swing/jazz myself. That just shows you can’t stereotype teenagers.

The one full album I distinctly remember my mother playing to me and singing songs to me from would have to be Cat Stevens – Tea for the Tillerman. I love that man to this day.

My father also had a huge collection of 45s and used to play them for me and my sister to dance to when we felt hyper. The most memorable sugar induced family dance parties occurred with “The Bird is the Word” playing chaotically in the background.

I’m 18 now but I still have this thing for vinyl (records people, I’m taking about records). On the subject of that old rascal Puff, the song was sung to me almost every night by my mother until I was about 10 and it brings fuzzies, not tears.

When I was a kid my dad was a Johnny Cash fan, and my mother was a church organist. So I got a bit of a mixture. But once I started buying my own music, I started off with Jesus Christ Superstar and Pink Floyd, The Wall.

Burl Ives Christmas, John Denver and the Muppets Christmas. Mom had a bunch of other stuff; I remember a lot of Beach Boys and Beatles we listened to as well. I seem to remember a Charlie Brown album where Snoopie fights the Red Baron, but that may not have been a 45.

my dad loved the Kingston Trio. hey lidie lidie lidie hey lidie lidie low. i knew all the words to all the songs. i think thats why i like Bare Naked Ladies so much now, they obviously were influenced by them.
umm, and when i was in fifth grade…my teacher was MS. Nolan. M S i am in my thirties, so having a MSSSS for a teacher at that time was unusual. i remember her distinctly playing the song “I Am Woman” by Helen Reddy over and over and over and over one day on one of the little plug in suitcase turntables. she had the whole class sing along until we knew the words. ummm. yeah. she was a big woman. not very attractive. even, shall we say, a bit mannish? MS Nolan. did i mention the MS? i dont even recall when it finally dawned on me that part of my formative years were heavily influenced by a lesbian. : )
so matthew, is that what you were looking for here?
::giggling::

Two LPs that really stand out are The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s…” and Stevie Wonder’s “Songs in the Key of Life.” I also had some 45’s that I played incessantly: David Cassidy’s “I Think I Love You,” Cher’s “Half Breed,” the theme song to “Hawaii 5-O” and the novelty hit “They’re Coming to Take Me Away Ha Haaa!”

When we used to come back from church, we were allways greeted by my dad’s favourite LP of sea shanties with the song “Blow The Man Down”.
This was standard fare in our house until my older brother took over the stereo when the Rolling Stones came along.
P.S. We lived about 2000 miles away from any ocean!

For us it was The Carpenters greatest hits and also some Dionne Warwick singing Bacharach and David songs ‘What do you get if you kiss a guy, you get enough germs to catch pneumonia….’ something like that. Oh and my dad had a 45 of the Captain and Tennille singing ‘Love will keep us together’ that he played over and over again. And my parents had an album from Herb Alpert and the Tijuana brass. Anyone else remember their album with the picture of the naked woman in all that whipped cream. I think it was called ‘A taste of honey’ or something like that. My parents were super conservative so the picture on that album made a big impression on me. As a result, I still think any kind of brass music sounds kind of kinky.

Dang, I’m weighing in pretty late here. I wasn’t *raised* on anything, per se, but I raised myself on a diet of Michael Jackson, Olivia Newton-John, and anything else that made it high on Casey’s Coast-to-Coast which I listened to religiously. (No really.. I would beg to skip church so I could keep listening)

This Christmas we made a mix cd of a bunch of songs that our 9-month old likes. See here (it’s currently the top entry).

And you know, now that I think about it, I can’t recall a single instance of either my mother or father listening to a piece of music on purpose. LPs I once owned: Corey Hart, Cyndi Lauper, The Jacksons (reunion), Debbie Gibson, Whitney Houston. 45s I bought: Major Tom by Peter Schilling (that sounds cool but…) and one by David Lee Roth.

When I got INXS’s Kick, it was sort of like being rescued… but only partially. I don’t think I was rescued until I bought Odelay.

And by the way, I never heard the Beatles, in any significant way, until I was 21.

Neil Diamond, Anne Murray, Al Green, and tons of Abba, which has made me an Abba fan for life, just because of the fond memories. Most of the music we listened to were on records, or dubbed tapes. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything played on an 8-track.

The first music-related thing I can remember is watching a documentary on the Beatles with my father, which included a Sesame Street version of the band and the video for Yellow Submarine. Most of the time, though, he listened to bad smooth jazz, The Police and Sting, and R.E.M.’s ‘Losing My Religion’ until I permanently borrowed the three albums he had. My mother, on the other hand, listened to Joni Mitchell, Tori Amos, and a compilation of Celtic music.

The only time I’ve ever seen or listened to a 45 was when my crazy French teacher made us listen to ‘Je T’Aime Moi Non Plus’ by Jane Birkin.

The first songs I remember hearing are Dylan’s “Shelter From The Storm” (utterly perplexing) and Marley’s “Stir It Up” (I thought he was singing ‘Ooh darling, Cereal…come on and cereal’).
I also remember dragging my little friends to the basement to giggle over the covers of my dad’s LPs, especially Blind Faith (because of the naked lady) and “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” (because there was a song called “Jamaican Jerk-Off”). And I really, really wanted to be as pretty as Stevie Nicks on the cover of the Buckingham Nicks album. Or Rita Coolidge.

“Peter and the Wolf” – Prokofiev (great for kids) and a TV theme tunes greatest hits with “Stingray” ,”Joe 90″ and “Dr Who” on it. My parents records at the time were mainly Elton John and Leo Sayer with some Elkie Brooks and Janis Ian.

Grew up on a nice mix of 60s and early 70s rock (all iterations of Eric Clapton, Beatles, Buffalo Springfield); jazz, Etta James, Sarah Vaughn, Diz and Miles and opera.

My kids got lots of kids music as littler people–folk with Pete Seeger, some local (Chicago) children’s musicians and storytelling cds for the car–including and required for any parent the awesome Ella Jenkins and Sweet Honey in the Rock’s I Got Shoes, which we all loved and from which we all still sing “Deep Blue Sea” Now they listen to my stuff in a desperate attempt to keep them away from KidzBop (Satan in cheap disguise)–Yo La Tengo, Jayhawks, Patty Griffin, Beth Orton, Stevie Wonder, Radiohead, Mogwai, Santana–whatever pops up on my homemade cd mixes. My son (8) prefers 70s and 80s rock (always an instant time warp for me), my daughter (5) can sing along to all my stuff–which is both hilarious and disturbing. My husband, who thinks REO Speedwagon and Rush are still cool, is not allowed to make any musical decisions in our household.

I was also raised on Anne Murray, in cassette form. Also Neil Diamond, Lionel Richie, and random 80’s music. My mom also had Crystal Gayle records that my sisters and I used to dance to in the living room, on our Fisher Price record player. I still have that record player, and it works!
My dad was into the Beatles and the Monkeys and “Crazy” by Patsy Cline.
So, I listened to a variety of music, which probably explains how I can love country, rock, rap, and everything in between. :)

my father wouldn’t let me listen to the radio in the ’80s. he said it “was not music”. so he gave me his pink floyd, rolling stones, and CSN&Y records, and i would play them on my cabbage patch kids record player. i fell in love with mowtown at an early age due to watching my mom and her friends get drunk and belt out four tops songs. heh. i pr’oly need music therapy!

In the years before I started school my two favorite albums consisted of the Oak Ridge Boys “Fancy Free,” and an unknown album by an unknown artist containing the song “Froggie Went A Courtin’.” Both of these were 12″ vinyl. My mom had an assload of Beatles 45s, but my fondest memories of them was watching them shatter to bits after being thrown, frisbee like, at a concrete wall.

During elementary school the two parental influences that standout the most are Johnny Cash and Dwight Yoakam. By this time cassettes were the format of choice in my household, and those that I remember acquiring on my own were:

But the thing that irks me in retrospect was the family vacation every year to Opryland in Nashville, TN. I look back at the performers headlining at the Grand Ol’ Opry the week before and after. George Jones. Clint Black. Names I know, and knew even at that age. Who did we have to go see every year?

Gary Morris. The guy whose claim to fame will be that he wrote the theme song to a Soap Opera.

But I got by without any emotional scarring. At least until I was in college and my burly mechanic dad admitted he was a lifelong closet Barbara Streisand fan…

I just wanna say that I realize that The Partridge Family wasn’t actually a “real” music group, that with the notable exception of David Cassidy they were just a bunch of kids pretending to sing and play instruments so that we could all pretend how great it would be to be in a famous rock band even though we were only in elementary school, but tell the truth, they had some really cool music, didn’t they?

As a child, for some bizarre reason, my mom listened to Country music. I guess it has to do with the afct that her first point of contact was Canada. So as a kid in Canada and, later, DC and NYC, I listened to Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton’s Jolene and stuff like that.

That’s hilarious, Matt. My parents used to listen to Simon & Garfunkel, Anne Murray, and Gordon Lightfoot. Since I only rarely hear that music, I think of it as a sort of built-in time machine that can go off unexpectedly.

Someone gave it to me because my dad (who was also AWOL) was Jewish. I listened to it daily for years and only found out a few years ago that my mom hated it but didn’t feel okay trying to take it away because it was the closest I’d ever get to knowing my “jewish heritage.”

My ten year old loves, absolutely loves, the soundtrack from the movie “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?”. Oh, and she will only listen to the oldie station..songs from the 60’s (I’m 34)…too old????? I don’t remember how to use question marks????

I forgot to mention that the movie “Grease” brings dancing, singing and “I want an outfit like her…please!” Of course the outfit is not Sany’s sweet 60’s dress with the cute ponytail, but instead it is Sandy’s final tramp outfit and hairdo at the end of a darn good musical (of course if I had her body I would want her tramp outfit also..my husband and I could have some playtime).

For some reason, I couldn’t get enough of “Der Kommissar”. I would listen to the single on vinyl, with HUGE headphones on, as much as possible. This was when I was younger than 10. Do most little boys have love of synthy eurodisco kraut pop?

I was named after Melanie, my parents and I went to see Harry Chapin live every summer until he died (I have a picture of me at age 5 sitting on his lap.), we had an extensive collection of Billy Joel 8-Tracks, but my favorite 45 in the entire world (that was played on my Mickey Mouse record player) was Frank Zappa’s “Dancin Fool” (B/W “Baby Snakes”). I can remember seeing Beatles, Stones, Toto, Doors, Pink Floyd, Dion, Manfred Mann, Average White Band, Allman Brothers, and Beach Boys albums in the parents record collection, which I was very fond of. My own 45’s included Pat Benetar’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot”, Rick James’ “Superfreak” (yes, in fact, my parents *were* on drugs for most of my childhood), Amii Stewart’s “Knock on Wood”, Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust”,(later) Prince’s “Purple Rain” (it was a purple 45!!), the Beverly Hillbillies Theme, the Dukes of Hazzard theme, and small stack of Sesame Street records that contained the still-adored likes of “C is for Cookie” and “Rubber Ducky”. My dad once bought me the Peter Criss (of Kiss fame) solo album because I liked the “kitty cat” on the cover… and then there was my 8-Track of Carole King’s soundtrack for Really Rosie which unceremoniously was eaten by the player after about the thousandth listen.

Way more info that you needed or probably cared about, but it felt really good to unload that burden on someone.

I grew up with Toto’s ‘Africa’, ‘Rossana’, and ‘I’ll Be Over You’, and Karen Carpenter, and oh yeah, how could I forget? ‘I’m Every Woman’ of Whitney Houston. Then some Mozart/Vivaldi/Beethoven/Wagner shit.

Matt, Grandpa’s favorites…Autumn Leaves, the theme music from Victory at Sea (I love this sweeping music too), An American in Paris by Bernstein and Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto number 1. I also remember Big Band music, especially In The Mood.

From 1972 to 1977, family trips for our Canadian clan were undertaken in an olive green ’71 Chevy Impala, with bench seats, no seatbelts in the back (where my two brothers and I sat) and the eight-track tape deck served up a continuous rotation of Gordon Lightfoot (Don Quixote, the tape was yellow) S&G (Greatest Hits, orange), Tom Jones (Greatest Hits, blue), and Andy Williams (don’t remember title, probably Greatest Hits, had “Speak Softly Love” (Theme from the Godfather) on it. Of course, in the latter portion of this period, everyone ELSE who happened to be staying in the same campground as my family had an 8-track that served up a steady diet of Peter Frampton (“Comes Alive”, never saw the tape, can’t comment on its colouration).

I am SO glad that I’m not the only one who had Sesame Street Fever. It was awesome. Also raised on: Mitch Miller, Peter and the Wolf, musical soundtracks, The Red Balloon, Simon and Garfunkel, and… am I the only kid who had a serious love of Harry Belafonte?

There are a lot of good and non-annoying kids CDs out now. Dan Zanes is a favorite. They Might Be Giants has one called “NO!” Best selection I’ve found is in the Land of Nod store in U Village. They also have a good selection of familiar but hard to find childrens’ books. Seeing some of them (like the ENTIRE collection of the Little Miss/Mister books) is like stepping back in time. Lots of enjoyable stuff for The Squirrely.

i was raised on old motown and stax stuff from my dad, and a healthy dose of crappy 80s soft rock like Chris DeBurgh and Miami Sound Machine from my mom. mostly, though, when i was a kid, i just liked to listen to either the Wind in the Willows book on tape, Bobby McFerrin, or Kenny Rogers.

What you need right off the bat isn’t the so-called “kids music”. You need tunes to walk a fussy baby around the house in the middle of the night by. This varies by baby of course, but I found Bill Evans solo piano to work every time.

By the time they were a year or so old, they were exhibiting a strong preference for Michael Doucet’s cajun zydeco music.

My dad had David Bowie’s “David Live”, a double album on big fat crackly vinyl. He also had a tape of it in the car. I didn’t know what a “hot tramp” was when I was 4, but I sang along anyway. My mum was unimpressed.

my parents had a record player which could play 13(?), 33, 45 and 78s… listening to an LP at 78 RPM or a 12′ single on the slowest setting always induced hilarity…

I remember when they announced that they were phasing out vinyl (probably ’bout ten years ago now) the sad disapointment of not being able to play contemporary albums backwards still brings a tear to the eye

Statler Brothers, Kenny Rogers, Barbara Mandrell and the Kingston Trio. Don’t know the albums but I can sing The Gambler, Sleeping Single in a Double Bed and one of my favorite Christmas tunes, Last Month of the Year. At least something good came out of it.

Yeah, I’m seriously about to date myself, but here is what I was “raised” on.

Steady diet of various Beatles hits on 45
Around the World with Three Dog Night, the live, two album version
The Soundtrack to Grease… on 8 track, no less
And my mother listening to Barry Manilow singing Copa Cobana every freakin’ day for 2 years.

My parents played a Rolf Harris album for us relentlessly – “Sun Arise”, “Tie Me Kangaroo Down”, and other fake Australian folk songs are still swimming around my sub-conscious. Also “Hair” the musical – we rugrats went around the house singing hippie protest songs with bad words in them. My first film was Yellow Submarine in ’68. Good stuff. I wouldn’t really be me without it.

First off: I have to strongly second “The Point”. I like the soundtrack, as an album, the best of anything Harry Nilsson ever did, and the movie is really good too.

Growing up in my house, we listened to musical soundtracks on LP a lot. Once I was convinced there was a cyclops under my bed and my dad made me listen to “Whistle a Happy Tune” from The King and I because he thought that would help for some reason. But the record that’s really permanently ingrained on my memory is my dad’s compilation of James Bond soundtrack songs. We choreographed little dance numbers to all of them, except From Russia With Love, which we hated. During the fast parts of Live and Let Die we would run around and around the couch. And we were afraid of Shirley Bassy and the way she sang “Gold-Fing-GAH!” Now I still get those songs in my head. As an adult I can see how totally inane the lyrics are, e.g.: “just like the moonraker knows his dreams will come true someday, I know that you are only a kiss away” (?!). I mean, what the heck is a moonraker? I admit I haven’t even seen that movie.

Any and every elvis album ever made. My Mom played them all the time. She mixed in a brain damaging dose of Barry Manilow, Kenny Rogers and some other “Artists” whos names time and therapy have erased.

Seriously though, it came in handy at my Brother in law’s BD party when I got up and belted out “Are you lonesome tonight?” on the karaoke stage. And the crowd loved it.

Wow, thanks for reminding me of three others I was raised on, everbody: Free To Be You And Me, Neil Diamond’s Greatest Hits, and, duh, Peter In The Wolf. I think I’ll pick up “Songs In The Key Of Life,” too.

Wow. I’m surprised to see so many comments here that mimic my own growing-up music (tho, considering the number of comments, I suppose I shouldn’t be).

Exception: The person who grew up thinking 70s music was Oldies.

And a double you-go-girl to Shelley and Lisa: my mom was so into Helen Reddy that I grew up thinking Helen Reddy wrote “Ticket To Ride”. Of course, it did help when I did a summer internship at NOW and was the only intern (not just the only male intern) who could recite “I Am Woman” verbatim.

Oddly, I was also raised on Simon and Garfunkels greatest hits, Harry Belefonte (DAY-O), the Brothers Four, and various Elvis songs. I’m not sure whether all this stunted me or enlightened me, but I have memories (and my parents confirm) of being at one end of the record player and my sister on the other listening to this stuff over and over…

My kids and I haven’t found that niche yet, as I flip on the classical station with them, or “Wheels on the bus” type songs.

I don’t remember my parents listening to much music in the house at all. However, I do have one very vivid recollection of when I was like 4 years old, riding in the back of the car, and my Dad was singing along with Bob Seger’s Old Time Rock & Roll.

This probably was one of the major reasons I listened to nothing but Classic Rock till I was 14.

I didn’t really have to listen to my parents’ music much growing up. Unless my dad got drunk, in which case my sister and I were subjected to in-depth analyses of Doors and Gordon Lightfoot songs. Analysis which, in retrospect, was wrong. I found music on my own when I was little, so I listened to just about whatever was on the radio growing up. I was born in 1983, so this led to a love of ’80s and early ’90s pop music (not that that’s all I love).

Vinyls? You bet. 8 Tracks? Oh yeah. When I was 15, for Christmas I got this awesome stereo system that had an 8 track player, turntable, AND a cassette deck, along with AM/FM radio. I was the most popular kid on the block for weeks, listening to Journey, Duran Duran, The Human League, Cindy Lauper. The thing I loved about the 8 track is that you would get about 1/2 way through a great song, then it would fade out, make a loud CLICK, wait forever, then fade back in on the next track. Those were the days.

Yellow Submarine was my favorite record when I was about 3. My mom tended to like Peter, Paul & Mary, Simon & Garfunkel, the Weavers, traditional Irish music, and bluegrass. My dad was a big fan of Johnny Cash, Jerry Reed, and Waylon Jennings. He developed an unhealthy obsession with “Hooked on Classics” when I was about 13. But on the plus side, he really liked Queen and took me and my brother to see them in 1981 at Madison Square Garden — my first rock show!

After reading all the comments, I had to join in. Your Mother forgets your Grandfather’s genius in being a huge Harry Belafonte fan. This music was later used in ‘Tim Burton’s “Beetlejuice”. (Day-o, Will his love be like his rum?, and the wonderfully melodic “Brown skin girl”) That is what I was raised on. However, I was a huge S&G fan, and when my kid stole my CD retrospective collection, I wisely kept my mouth shut, and let her discover them herself.

I was raised on early Whitney Houston. Can anyone remember “Oh, I wanna dance with somebody…” because I certainly can…. Also I was overwhelmed with Paul Simon’s Graceland which I didn’t mind at all, still don’t. There were many others but these two stand out more than ALL of the rest. Good ol’ 80’s. Good times, good times.

Since my room was adjacent only to my sister’s room and my mom’s room, I was pretty much trapped once I was in bed for the night (and to think they actually got medicine to cure me of bed-wetting!). From my prison, I could not help but hear the booming strains of my sister’s Supertramp albums in the next room. Hated then, it’s now some of my favorite music. I’m not certain whether to love her or hate her for that.

“Free to Be, You and Me” of course! It was so funny when I got older and recognized all of the famous people on that record. I used to love staring at the little kids draped over the letters on the album cover. I still know the words to most of the songs. Favorite line?
“And mighty tasty, too!”

there was always constant music, in my family – my parents and their siblings were all in their late teens early 20s when i was born, so they were still rockin out. but, the first records i remember really liking on my own were Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust and John Denver’s Greatest Hits. when i was five, i had one of those 8-track players that looked like a TNT detonator and i had those two on 8-track.

My parents listened to just about zero music. They had this tiny rack of maybe twelve albums that someone must have foisted upon them in the hope that their parties would become more entertaining. I remember they had the red and blue double album Apple Beatles collections. Those were big. And whenever my dad had a party, there were two records that would come out every single time, unavoidably, no matter how much you cried:

Billy Swan “I Can Help”
Paul McCartney and Wings “Red Rose Speedway”

This scarred me at a very early age. I remember a couple of the other ten records they had: The Eagles “Hotel California” and Santana – Whatever that one with the lion’s head that has naked people in it is called.

Luckily, being recent English immigrants, my parents did have a good collection of Goon Show records, Round the Horne, and various other british radio comedy. I also remember that the whole family would listen to Dr. Demento over dinner every Sunday.

I hate Santana and the Eagles with a beautiful perfection now. Billy Swan I understand is in the Federal Witness Protection Program somewhere.

The first band I remember really getting into was Ultravox. Must have been the lip gloss and skinny ties.

Dad: Classical. All the time. I used to beg Dad to change the radio station. Occasionally big band – Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, which came in handy in high school when we staged a USO themed show at school.

Mom liked what Dad did, but let me listen to my radio stations. I used to make Mom guess if it was a man or a woman singing, and she’d always get it wrong. (Bee Gees?)

Big sister: My earliest music memory was listening to her Seals & Krofts album “Summer Breeze,” and singing the refrain of “Advance Guards” over and over – “take me there, take me there, I don’t care where we go…”

Of my own collection, “Free to Be You and Me” was my favorite album growing up, and I knew it all by heart. I also had Peter and the Wolf, the Mary Poppins album, and Puff the Magic Dragon.

The very first album I ever bought for myself was Saturday Night Fever, followed by Grease, and Billy Joel’s the Stranger.

My folks were mostly musically challenged, the highlights would have been Neil Diamond and Abba, I guess.

A year ago I saw “Chiquitita” by Abba on a jukebox, and I thought I liked that song, but I couldn’t remember how it went. That song sucks. I was embarrassed when it was blaring over the speakers in the bar. Oh well.

too lazy to read through it all, so maybe this has been said, but not only am I tipping the readership level to the youth side at 19 years, but I have a vast record collection. In fact, that’s about all I buy anymore.

Records I was raised on? “Trail Songs and Gunfighter Ballads” by Marty Robbins, “Elvis:Aloha from Hawaii” and “Revolver”

My dad definitely raised us on Graceland by Paul Simon. When we go back home, the whole family can (and, embarrassingly, does) sing along to every single track, including the weird african whooping noises and the one which sounds like somebody flubbing their bottom lip.

When I was four years old, nothing compared to the majesty and epic grandeur of Meatloaf’s Bat out of Hell. Remember the cover? With the bat? That appeared to be from Hell? And riding a hella cool chopper, although that never made it into the album’s title?

Aside from Meatloaf (which a neighbour’s kid owned) my parents had me on a strict diet of more refined stuff: Beatles, Tom Lehrer, Monty Python albums, Bob Dylan, Charles Aznavour, and a whole lotta opera. I had no idea that contemporary pop music even existed. Which was a good thing when you consider that ‘contemporary pop’ mean Bachman-Turner Overdrive and Bay City Rollers.

Then I turned thirteen and joined the Columbia Record and Tape Club. I ordered The Smiths on a whim, and my taste for whiny indie music was set.

I was raised on a rather strange mixture of what m dear dad enjoys: frank sinatra, mozart and the best of charles aznavour (some obscure french dude who sounds like he’s had waaaay too much red wine) – sometimes there was a bit of german folk music in the mix, as well (arrrgh!).
as for music both parents and kids enjoy, my vote would be for blues traveler’s “four”. kids should enjoy the happy sound and can also start developing good musical taste. then again sinatra isn’t too bad a choice – “wee small hours” should make for some good lullabies ;)
anyway – apart from daddy’s faves my influences are a bit more widespread: neil young, bob marley (great for kids!), bruce springsteen, blues in general and last but most certainly not least metallica… diversity rules!!

p.s.: of course I know what a 45 is (it’s that thing you shoot people with, right? – just kidding)

p.p.s: oh, before I forget – techno is NOT music and making kids listen to it would constitute child abuse in my book.

We had 8 tracks and vinyl at home. We still listen to Anne Murray and The Carpenters Christmas albums every year. My mother really liked the Beatles and CCR (but she mixed in an unhealthy amount of oldies and showtunes). My dad was into Kenny Rogers and whatever my mother was into.

Did anyone else’s parents go through that swing phase in the 80’s? “Hooked on Swing?” It seemed like all their friends were into it, too. My mother played that record to death.

When I was four, my parents gave me a whole basket of 45’s that I could play on plasticky fisher-price record player. My favorites out of the stack were “Devil Went Down to Georgia” (Charlie Daniels Band), “Cool Change” (Little River Band) and “Sailing” (Christopher Cross).

My parents still have their reel-to-reel set up and connected to the stereo. My mom often cleans house to it — if anyone’s interested, a clean house sounds like Poco, “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad” by Meatloaf, Harry Chapin and Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s “House at Pooh Corner.”

Oh mi gawd!! What memories!! Free to Be You and Me, Peter and the Wolf, Puff…huh..I’d forgotten all those..as we got older it was Barry Manilou, Cristopher Cross, Helen Reddy, and Barbara Striesand, as a teenager I branched out to Arlo Gutherie and Pete Seegar, Air Supply and INXS (??) ..as a young adult I got into They Might Be Giants, Stone Roses..then I married a Heavy Metal lover..so onto Ozzy, Metallica, Anthrax…now my 4 yr old daughter loves (early)Brittney, Matchbox 20, and my son loves Nickleback, Ozzy etc..Music is so awesome..all of it really!!

My dad had an old Cat Stevens record, ‘Numbers’, that was a concept album (I guess it still is) that I listened to all the time. It was recently re-released on CD, though I still prefer the original Album. The reason is that the album comes with a cartoon story book that gives the background to the songs on the album, and it’s a lot more fun to look through the big album-book than the little CD-book . The story, in short, is this: there’s a planet that makes numbers for the entire universe. Nine people live on the planet (one for each number 1-9). They’re perfectly content until one day Jzero shows up. Then everything starts getting wierd.

Due to the conceptual nature of this album, it never got much in the way of air-play, but it was very well produced. Kind of disco-y (it was released in the mid-1970’s) but Stevens pulls it off beautifully. A great album, in my opinion, for kids and adults.